March 2019

On March 6, 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced via an interview and a Facebook blog post a planned shift to “building a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform.” Characterizing this shift as a “privacy-focused vision,” Zuckerberg said that this change in focus meant that Facebook and Instagram would not only function as “the digital equivalent of a town square” but also “the digital equivalent of the living room.” This shift was billed in part as a response to user demand: according to the post, the “fastest growing areas of online communication” were private messaging, “ephemeral stories,” and small group communication.

According to the blog post, Facebook’s “privacy-focused platform” will be based on six principles: private interactions, encryption, reducing permanence, safety, interoperability, and secure data storage. “Interoperability” refers to Facebook’s plan to integrate its messaging services across Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct. The blog post did not provide much detail on what these principles would mean in practice or what changes users would see from an experiential perspective, but rather qualified its efforts as being in the “early stages.”

Earlier this month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the latest iteration of its Supervisory Highlights report, which summarizes some of the CFPB’s recent supervisory examinations and provides guidance to industry about practices to avoid. The CFPB’s Supervisory Highlights report notes that the CFPB has recently examined the following practices:

Automobile Loan Servicing. The CFPB has recently conducted examinations of captive automotive finance companies for unfair and deceptive acts and practices (UDAAPs) involving rebates for extended automobile warranties. Typically, when a lessee purchases an extended warranty for a leased car and the car is a total loss, the lessee is entitled to a pro-rated rebate of the premium amount for the un-used portion of the warranty; the rebate is applied first to any deficiency balance on the lease, and the balance is returned to the lessee. The CFPB found that some automotive finance companies had engaged in UDAAPs by (1) failing to apply the rebate to the deficiency balance or artificially deflating the value of the rebate (for instance, by overstating the number of miles on the car) and then (2) attempting to collect on the inflated deficiency balance.